Turkey are rumoured to have chosen a popular group called maNga after a poll was commissioned to ask the Turkish public who they would like to send to Oslo. Now why can't we do something like that in Ireland...

Ukraine have chosen Vasiliy Lazarovich as their performer.

UK are rumoured to be doing another Your Country Needs You (Spain are also using the format) with Gary Barlow as this year's Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Other countries will be selecting in a variety of formats over the coming months.

Andorra, Czech Republic, Hungary and Montenegro are all not entering this year.

50/50 televoting/jury votes will be used in the semis (25 and 27 May) as well as again in the final (29 May) this year.

I listened to the Albanian entry and to be honest found it disastrous...still didn't listen to "Golden Rain", but I'm scared just a little bit .

as for the possible Polish entry - there will be 10 songs to choose from (9 already revealed, we are waiting for a wild card). the final will take place on Feb 14. (how romantic...). I listened to all these songs and I'm sure we won't win again (even the entry to the final...).
however, poths may like this little gem

This is no laughing matter! The decision went all the way to the Knesset, where some of our worthy politicians debated whether the selection process had been improper and possibly corrupt. I know that at least one of them also claimed that musicians of Russian ancestry had been discriminated against .

The Finnish selection process starts today. We have three semifinals, and the final is 30.1. You can listen the candidates in euroviisut.yle.fi
The site is only in Finnish, sorry. PM me if you need some help.

My vote goes to Eläkeläiset, feel free to me. All my friends agree that my music taste is horrible. And I know that drunken humppa is not really Eurovision-song-contest-type music.

Andorra, Czech Republic, Hungary and Montenegro are all not entering this year.

Click to expand...

Nooooooooo! Who will (gift) give us 12 points now?

Spanish RTVE has just opened a process for receiving candidates to select internally the song, let´s say they sound quite desperados (Your country needs you! (to keep the last place and shame us all) Do it for your country!)

Albania, of course!
I'm to acknowledge about who's gonna represent Albania by reading this thread. Shame on me! I shall throw ashes over my head

Anyways, she's over the top and people are snarking her song is too similar to Aguilera's "Keeps getting better". I thought it had also some Britney "Womanizer" especially at the beginning
But WHEEE for the Marielle Matthieu on peroxide hairdo!
PML at the Golden Rain

When is Eurovision this year? I feel I should come to Dublin as having a small Eurovision get together here last year resulted in a friend who as a result of that is due to have her first baby in 2 weeks! (I got all the blame! PML!)

Unfortunatly, the lyrics are bad (and I mean BAD).
That isn't going to help for the people who can actually understand them.

Not much news coming from France.
It will be an internal choice from France 3.
It should be revealed at some point in March (but last year, it leaked in January).
It shouldn't be a novice, rather a big name, to attract french viewers.
Like last year, people are talking about Chritophe Maé or Christophe Willem (both would be equally surprising but Patricia Kaas' acceptance was completly unexpected as well, so ...)
I don't care about Maé (he's cute and not bad) but Willem would be great. He's not a cutie but he's fun, creative and a real pleasure to listen to on stage.
(Actually, the other one I'd like to see is Stanislas)
Bruno Berbères who is one of the persons in charge of the selection says he would like a song on which one could dance at the euroclub. Willem would fit perfectly.

If Guetta is involved with Willem being the singer, it will be to work on the arrangements. Since France3 has decided to present "real" singers at Eurovision, the chosen song has always come from the latest album of those singers, possibly re-arranged a bit.